OK, so if anything, I have at a minimum derived from this thread a practical item useful to any future realty purchases I might make.

The
"house" in the "bowl" is not a good idea...

On a more serious note, I'd be curious to see how many of these subsidence zones exist worldwide! Based on the small amount of research I did on this
general topic, I ran into a lot of material that made it sound like most of Arizona and Nevada were sinking. I really wonder how big is this
problem?

TA - I listened to your podcast, but need to go back to it when I am less distracted, so won't comment right now.

I am posting some of my notes, with links. Briefly, I have been searching for info on 1) complexity theory as it applies to earthquakes and other
geophysical phenomena, 2) seismic wave amplification, and 3) feedback loops between internal and external magnetic radiation. ...I am investigating
the hypothesis that the planet's structure is a complex adaptive system - not just a complex system. Probably heretical.

Note: Just as info about ice age cycles that was openly discussed in 1970's publications now has 'disappeared' from the public domain, so
has discussion about complexity theory as it applies to geophysical phenomenon like earthquakes.

...There should be much, much more than there
is, with more detail and description of the complex system, as well as delineation of the components/factors - and especially, synthetic factors
resulting from industrial activity. This dearth of information is especially odd considering complexity theory was born from geophysical studies, and
a desire to predict earthquakes.

Re: Seismic Wave Amplification:

I found one particularly intriguing reference to the fact that geology can create underground "lens structures" that focus S-waves (at least),
and amplify them - but so far, not much else on this phenomenon. However, it does have some promise to help explain potential impacts from voids
or now-empty chambers, and oil fields.

"our results suggest that a contact between high velocity material underlying the Santa Monica Mountains and low velocities of the Los Angeles Basin
is warped to form a 3D lens that focuses waves arriving from the north on sites in mid-Santa Monica. ...enhanced damage in Santa Monica is explained
in the main by focusing due to a lens structure at a depth of several km beneath the surface, and having a finite lateral extent.

...The reason why the difference of S-wave amplification factors between the central and northern parts of Santa Monica is significantly larger than
the coda amplification factors, is that S-wave energy is focused on the stations through the lens, while coda wave rays, being omnidirectional, are
not."

"Wide area around the future epicenter reaches a metastable state, and the system turns to be very sensitive to small external actions. The
concept of SOC does not contradict to the concept of dilatation. However it assumes that significantly greater region is involved during the last
stages of the earthquake preparation as the dilatation theory implies....during the last stages of earthquake formation, fractures emit
electromagnetic waves with increasing frequency able to penetrate into the ionosphere and magnetosphere, ..." CHANGES IN GEOLOGICAL FAULTS ASSOCIATED WITH EARTHQUAKES

BACKGROUND - COMPLEXITY THEORY

The best (most accessible) explanations about complexity theory I've found are contained in economic papers, with passing reference to earthquakes.
...The whole systems approach seems to have been redirected - away from earthquakes - to focus on economics.

"A central property of a complex system is the possible occurrence of coherent large-scale collective behaviors with a very rich structure, resulting
from the repeated non-linear interactions among its constituents: the whole turns out to be much more than the sum of its parts. ...It turns out that
most complex systems around us do exhibit rare and sudden transitions, that occur over time intervals that are short compared to the characteristic
time scales of their posterior evolution. Such extreme events express more than anything else the underlying "forces" usually hidden by almost
perfect balance and thus provide the potential for a better scientific understanding of complex systems. These crises have fundamental societal
impacts and range from large natural catastrophes, catastrophic events of environmental degradation, to the failure of engineering structures, crashes
in the stock market, social unrest leading to large-scale strikes and upheaval, economic drawdowns on national and global scales, regional power
blackouts, traffic gridlock, diseases and epidemics, etc. It is essential to realize that the long-term behavior of these complex systems is often
controlled in large part by these rare catastrophic events..."

"Self-organized criticality is hypothesized to link the multitude of complex phenomena observed in Nature to simplistic physical laws and / or one
underlying process. It is a theory of the internal interactions of large systems. Specifically, it states that large interactive systems will
self-organize into a critical state (one governed by a power law, see figure 1). Once in this state small perturbations result in chain reactions,
which can affect any number of elements within the system."

Seismic wave
A seismic wave is an elastic wave generated by an impulse such as an earthquake or an explosion. Seismic waves may travel either along or near the
earth's surface (Rayleigh and Love waves) or through the earth's interior (P and S waves).

Body wave
A body wave is a seismic wave that moves through the interior of the earth, as opposed to surface waves that travel near the earth's surface. P and S
waves are body waves. Each type of wave shakes the ground in different ways.
P wave
A P wave, or compressional wave, is a seismic body wave that shakes the ground back and forth in the same direction and the opposite direction as the
direction the wave is moving. P waves are the only waves that can go through the core.
S wave
An S wave, or shear wave, is a seismic body wave that shakes the ground back and forth perpendicular to the direction the wave is moving.

POINT: Industry changes the earth's geological structure - including oil and gas drilling, other mining, and 'mining' water from aquifers
and underground rivers for industrial use. Complexity theory says that a) the planet is a system, and that b) as a system, the planet will
adjust to accommodate change.

QUESTIONS: Given these facts, why is there no informed public discussion and debate on the issue of industrial activity and geological change? Why has
most publicly accessible information on the topic disappeared down the memory hole?

A: Research carried out by UTIG scientists suggests that earthquakes in some parts of Texas may be induced by the pumping of fluids at oil and gas
fields, or by the injection of fluids to dispose of chemical wastes. The earthquakes in the Fashing-Pleasanton area southeast of San Antonio are
almost certainly caused by or triggered by pumping; such earthquakes also seem to occur in the Texas Panhandle near Snyder, Texas. [NOTE: Parts of
the Panhandle sit above the Ogallala Aquifer.]

Q: If pumping oil and gas cause earthquakes, is it safe to continue pumping?

A: Yes, it is almost always safe. Earthquakes induced by the injection or pumping of fluids from wells are generally very small; most have
magnitudes of 3 or less. Moreover, while tens of thousands of oil and gas wells exist in Texas, only a few fields show any evidence that oil and
gas pumping induces earthquakes.

Re: Media Bias. The above copy would had to have passed inspection by the Texas oil industry's promo and legal departments.

On a more realistic note, here's the legal poop on earthquake hazards for common Texans:

"For reasons of safety, economy, and (in some cases) law, Texans need to consider earthquake hazard when designing or siting various structures which
are essential for providing medical or emergency management services, which house sensitive manufacturing processes, or which store hazardous
wastes."

...This article is was written by Dr. Elchin Khalilov, an accomplished Russian scientist, and published by Azeri Consulting. It is translated badly
from Russian - but is informative. It seems to say that oil and gas deposits - at least in Russia and the Caspian - are always in
earthquake-prone areas (subduction zones) - therefor, oil extraction is always a geologically destabilizing factor. OIL AND EARTHQUAKES

...I'd be curious to see how many of these subsidence zones exist worldwide! Based on the small amount of research I did on this general topic, I ran
into a lot of material that made it sound like most of Arizona and Nevada were sinking. I really wonder how big is this problem?

The river is moving away from the city. The city is sinking because of its weight, because no upbuilding by new muck for many decades, because of
being cut off from the fresh water, because it is sliding off a cliff (the Continental Shelf), and because the Oil and Gas Industry is extracting oil
out from under it. It is a city that for all intents and purposes is now Sea domain.

Biggest Cost of Oil: Land-Mass Destruction

The dirty secret of the Oil and Gas business is that in order to get it out of the ground, you have to do things that are messing up the structure of
the planet. When you pump the stuff out, the land subsides. It goes down not only from the volume of fuel removed, but also from the volume of all of
the other stuff removed as well. ...The deeper the recovery site, the more certainly these effects are seen, but over wider areas involving hundreds
of miles.

This is causing the earth to slide. The Norphlet structure which dives below the surface at Tuscaloosa Alabama and across to about Shreveport, La, and
well into Texas is 50,000 feet down at the lowest end of Petronius. Petronius, 65 miles south of the opening of Mobile Bay, is an old river delta that
is now sliding into the ocean because of Oil and Gas Extraction. The slide is about 1 foot a year and accelerating, taking the whole region -- an area
of about 100,000 square miles -- into the deep Gulf of Mexico.

...The industry is very familiar with this problem although they have not publicized it.

Hurricanes are Seismic Events

It is during Hurricanes that this land loss becomes apparent to the public. Hurricanes settle the land by seismic effects of their waves together with
washing action. The force of hurricane-driven waves can easily reach seismic values of a 3.0 on the Richter scale -- repeated every few moments for
many hours. This causes liquefaction, settling, erosion and triggers slides. A hurricane the size of Katrina is a Geologic event as much as it is a
weather event.

.....Subsidence due to oil and gas extraction is historically documented and ongoing damage can be confidently declared to be fact. The damage these
guys are doing is horrid. ...Maybe if we were publicly discussing oil’s true cost – destruction of cities and whole land areas -- a rational
decision will be possible.

By 2000 - it was very clear that oil and gas drilling were impacting this planet's geodynamics, along with other industrial activities - and that the
earth was becoming geodynamically active in unusual ways. Scientists were discussing new and expanded theories - like "surge Tectonics" and
"Self-Organizinf Criticality" to better explain what was happening.

Unfortunately, the War on Terror intervened, and US scientists were silenced, supposedly to prevent terrorists from accessing sensitive information.
As a result, public discussion was terminated, nothing was done, and industrial activity continued unabated - despite the increasingly recongnized
dangers. Now, geodynamic activity on earth seems to be escalating even more.

However - geodynamics - and the effects of industrial activity on our planet's structural integrity - are again coming to the fore, Following the
Asian quake and tsunami, as well as Katrina's impact on New Orleans.

The first "Quakes trigger Quakes" podcast talked about the two studies - recently published in Nature magazine - which show that amplitude, not
frequency, is the critical factor making quakes trigger quakes. The study's validity is not in question - the authors are geoscientists working with
agencies like the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Geological Survey, for example.

We're focusing discussion here on amplitude - and right now, looking at two factors that can increase the amplitude of seismic waves. These two
factors are subsidence, and seismic lenses.

Subsidence is - the sudden collapse of something into a hollow beneath it - OR - a gradual sinking to a lower level.
Subsidence can be caused by industrial activity, such as subsurface mining or the pumping of oil or groundwater – or it may be caused by natural
geologic processes, such as thawing, slow crustal warping, or withdrawal of fluid lava from beneath a solid crust.

Seismic lenses are similar to interstellar gravitational lenses - seismic and gravitational lenses both bend, redirect, focus and amplify
waves. Seismic lenses act on this planet's underground seismic waves - while gravitational lenses act on electromagnetic radiation in the cosmos.
Seismic lenses are associated with fractures in the earth's structure - some occur naturally, far beneath the planet's surface - others can be
created by industrial activity - specifically, by drilling for oil and gas - and also, can occur when materials like oil, gas, and minerals are
removed from rock or earth.

In short, oil and gas drilling and mining for minerals affects planet's structural integrity - directly by causing quakes - and indirectly through
subsidence, which can be slow or sudden – and also, by creating seismic lenses, which redirect and amplify seismic waves, and cause earthquakes to
trigger new quakes in different locations.

In addition, earthquakes release magnetic radiation into the atmosphere. In so doing, they create a domino effect that influences weather, and creates
hurricanes. In turn, the hurricanes themselves are a seismic event, as illustrated by Katrina in New Orleans – and the circle goes round and
round.

Time to get back to complexity theory, and take another look at surge tectonics, and self-organizing criticality.

Gravitational lenses can focus, distort, and split light beams in the same way that ordinary glass lenses do. Deflection of electromagnetic
radiation from a distant background source by a strong gravitational field associated with a foreground source resulting in more than one image of the
original source. Many double-quasars are produced by this phenomenon.
Gravitational-Lens Effect
The effect of matter in curved spacetime, which tends to focus any beam of radiation from a distant source. In effect, the spacetime curvature is a
lens of great focal length. At z approx 1, the angular size of an object starts increasing with distance. Gravitational Lensing Gravitational Lens

"This paper looks at the challenges confronting plate tectonics-the ruling paradigm in the earth sciences. The classical model of thin lithospheric
plates moving over a global asthenosphere is shown to be implausible. Evidence is presented that appears to contradict continental drift, seafloor
spreading, and subduction, as well as the claim that the oceanic crust is relatively young. The problems posed by vertical tectonic movements are
reviewed, including evidence for large areas of submerged continental crust in today's oceans. It is concluded that the fundamental tenets of plate
tectonics might be wrong."

The theory of "Self-Organized Criticality" says that large interactive systems will self-organize into a critical state. Once in this state,
even small perturbations or seemingly unrelated changes result in chain reactions.

The "Peak Oil" crisis may be a cover story to camouflage the real crisis - and stop oil drilling. Here is the conclusion to a speech given by
Michael C. Ruppert to the New York Petrocollapse Conference – October 5, 2005.

The speech is copied in full around the net, under various titles: The Stark Reality of America's Financial Meltdown; The End of Suburbia; Peak Oil
And The Coming Collapse: Five Rules For Survival. The ATS commentary is here: Petro Collapse
Speach, Must Read

We are witnessing government response to Peak Oil now. In my earlier presentation I have made it clear that that response will include only measures
which protect the financial elites and major corporations. They include:

1. Rationing
2. More Coal and Nuclear – Emphasis on Fisher-Tropsch Coal-to-Liquids Conversion.
3. Suspended Environmental and Drilling Restrictions
4. Protection of Critical Infrastructure
5. Strengthening and Reinforcing Domestic Military Operations – Suspension of Posse Comitatus
6. Suspension and Relaxation of Labor and Minimum Wage Laws.
7. Changing and Tightening the Bankruptcy Laws Allowing Fewer Distressed Consumers to Discharge Debts.
8. Allowing and Facilitating Population Reduction through Famine and Disease.
9. Strengthening and Giving More Power to FEMA.
10. Destroying Demand Through Economic Collapse and Allocating Scarce Resources – by Force if Necessary – to Protect the Interests of the
Wealthiest Communities and Interests in the Country.
Accordingly, I have developed five rules which should be used as a guide for all who understand Peak Oil, who appreciate both its imminence and
significance, and who wish to do something to increase their chances for survival as our long emergency now begins:

1. There is no combination of alternative energy sources anywhere that will enable current consumption and growth to continue.

2. Even if there were, it takes 30 years and lots of capital investment to change an energy infrastructure. Peak Oil is here now. The current
infrastructure will not be rebuilt or even well maintained. The return on that investment for the financial elites is “uncertain” and they will
not spend any more than they have to on band aid solutions until the crash becomes apparent.

3. No government entity (federal or state) will do (or be able to do) anything to solve Peak Oil and energy shortages. The political system is utterly
and irretrievably broken.

4. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. It will be more profitable to let decline, starvation, wars, disease and famine occur
than it will be to prevent them (Disaster Capitalism).

5. All real solutions will be place-based, local and originate at the grass roots, independent of government. What saves you and your family will be
determined by what and who is in your own neighborhood and what kind of cooperation has been achieved there.

Scientists now have their first direct view inside the notorious San Andreas Fault in California.

After drilling down two miles and making a turn to reach the zone where two major crustal plates come together, the geologists of the San Andreas
Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) crossed over from the granite rock that makes up the ground to the west of the fault at Parkfield, Calif., and into
the softer sediments to the east.

In between they discovered a 240-meter-wide zone which appears to be where all the quakes take place.

"We have successfully drilled across the San Andreas Fault," announced SAFOD geophysicist Mark Zoback of Stanford University. ...The Parkfield
section of the San Andreas was chosen because it has about 10,000 tiny quakes each year. ..."It's a natural earthquake machine," said Zoback.

Among the central questions scientists hope to answer is exactly how earthquakes begin and if they all do it in the same way, explained SAFOD
investigator William Ellsworth of the US Geological Survey. ...There is also the possibility they may discover some precursor signals to quakes that
might be of use in earthquake prediction.

An update on gravitational lenses - a phenomenon somewhat similar to seismic lenses. Seismic lenses direct and amplify seismic waves; gravitational
lenses are known to bend light. Gravitational lense research - and astronomy - just took a giant leap forward.

Light from a distant galaxy bends around an intervening one, forming a halo. The phenomenon helps astronomers weigh entire galaxies.

The halos, known as Einstein rings, are mirages. In each case, astronomers say, they are a result of light rays from a distant galaxy being bent
around an intervening galaxy as in a lens. They are among the most elegant manifestations of gravity's ability to bend light, as decreed by Albert
Einstein's general theory of relativity.

A hundred or so gravitational lenses are now known in which a galaxy or cluster of them produces arcs or multiple images of a distant quasar. But for
a perfect bull's-eye one galaxy must be lined up behind another at the right distance. This geometry is so rare that until last week only three
complete Einstein rings were known.

To look for more, Dr. Bolton and his colleagues combed through data from 200,000 galaxies obtained in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, an effort to
measure colors and distances of about 100 million objects, including a million galaxies. They used the Hubble to examine 28 candidates. They found 19
gravitational lenses, including 8 rings.

Gravitational lenses are not known to involve gravitational waves - but here's a glossary anyway.

gravitational waves: Distortions of space geometry that propagate through space with the speed of light, analogous to ripples on the surface of a pond
propagating as water waves.

gravitational wave astronomy: Nascent discipline of astronomy which aims at using gravitational waves to gain information about cosmic objects or the
cosmos as a whole - for instance about what's happening in the core region of a supernova, about neutron star or about the heated past of our
universe. ...So far, though, scientists are still working on the first direct detection of gravitational waves using highly sophisticated
gravitational wave detectors, after which gravitational wave astronomy is hoped to begin in earnest.

gravitational wave detector: Currently, scientists world wide are attempting the direct measurement of gravitational waves reaching us from the depths
of space. They are mainly using two types of detectors: interferometric detectors like GEO 600 and the LIGO detectors, and resonant detectors.

Geologists have warned that the simmering Mount Merapi volcano could blow its top in the wake of the powerful quake that devastated swathes of
Indonesia's main island of Java.

"Theoretically as well as statistically, there is a very large possibility that tectonic activities trigger or increase volcanic activities,"
Syamsulrizal, who works at Indonesia's national vulcanology office, said Tuesday.

Quake activity near a dormant volcano may "switch it on," while already active volcanoes could see more intense rumblings, said the head of
the office's department for disaster risk evaluation.

I have long thought this myself. Removing fluids from the earth can cause earthquakes. So can injecting fluid to replace the oil. I have noticed
that most earthquake activity lately, surprisingly has been around where the current major oil fields are.

Oil wells cause earthquakes

In 1958, a geologist calculated that injecting fluid into the ground increases the chance of earthquakes. Thirty-one years later, another geologist
has shown the reverse: pumping gas or oil out of the ground can also trigger earthquakes.

Pumping out underground crude contracts the rock in oil reservoirs and sets up large pressure changes over short distances, Paul Segall of the U.S.
Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., calculates in the October GEOLOGY. Vertical contraction makes the ground above the reservoir sink, while
horizontal stresses pull surrounding rock inward. If the pull becomes strong enough to shear the rock, an earthquake results.

...But that's my voice. I thought I could use it for good [sic], and trick a few guys on the Net into some serious thinking - if not conspiratiorial
evaluation. You're the first one who brought up the 900 thing. So maybe it worked.

Oct. 13, 2005 ? Large earthquakes have long been suspected but rarely
convicted of triggering lesser quakes near and far, and now a theory is
starting to explain how they do it. What matters most is how "loud" the
seismic trigger shock is at a distance from the epicenter, rather than
which particular seismic note a main shock sings through the ground.

These days I'm on about Yellowstone Valley Electric's plan to build a gas plant in the Yellowstone area.

The area is NOT reliably stable - Yellowstone is experiencing at least one earthquake swarm per year lately. Quakes trigger quakes - and human
activity triggers quakes. The domino effect is called a cascade - and the risks are real.

Thank gawd Yellowstone Valley Electric dropped the plan to do a bit of coal mining - but building a gas plant is equally imbecilic.

When I first posted this in 2004, mainstream apologists were still insisting that quakes did NOT trigger quakes, and seismic testing or drilling for
oil for sure couldn't trigger quakes. Glad to see that these days, the potential for a "domino effect" is better recognized...

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